He denied that he had issued the lying proclamation published at Lyme;
he denied that he had sought the crown of his own free will; finally,
in an agony of supplication, he hinted that he would even renounce
Protestantism if thereby he might escape death. James told him that
he should have the service of a Catholic priest, but would promise
nothing more. Monmouth groveled and pleaded, but the King's heart was
like marble, and he turned away in silence. Then the Duke, seeing
that all his efforts were vain, rose to his feet and regained his
manhood.

He was forthwith sent to the Tower, and shortly afterwards to
execution. His headless body was buried under the communion table of
that little chapel of St. Peter within the Tower grounds, where the
remains of Anne Boleyn, Lady Jane Grey, Sir Thomas More, and many
other royal victimsf, are gathered. No sadder spot exists on earth,
"since there death is associated with whatever is darkest in human
nature and human destiny."[1]

[1] Macaulay's "England."

After Monmouth's death there were no further attempts at insurrection,
and the struggle at Sedgemoor remains the last encounter worthy of the
name of battle fought on English soil.

487. The "Bloody Assizes" (1685).

The defeat of the insurgents who had rallied under Monmouth's flag was
followed by a series of trials known, from their results, as the
"Bloody Assizes" (1685). They were conducted by Judge Jeffreys,
assisted by a band of soldiers under Colonel Kirke, ironically called,
from their ferocity, "Kirke's Lambs." Jeffreys was by nature cruel,
and enjoyed the spectacle of mental as well as bodily anguish. As he
himself said, he delighted to give those who had the misfortune to
appear before him "a lick with the rough side of his tongue,"
preparatory to roaring out the sentence of torture or death, in which
he delighted still more.

All who were in the remotest way implicated in the late rebellion were
now hunted down and brought to a trial which was but a mockery of
justice. No one was permitted to defend himself. In fact, defense
would have been useless against the blind fury of such a judge. The
threshold of the court was to most that crossed it the threshold of
the grave. A gentleman present at one of these scenes of slaughter,
touched with pity at the condition of a trembling old man called up
for sentence, ventured to put in a word in his behalf. "My Lord,"
said he to Jeffreys, "this poor cre